A done deal by Friday 24th is the ‘exclusive’ from Arabianbusiness.com today…
EXCLUSIVE: Portsmouth deal to be sealed on July 24 – click here.
So, it is being said that Dr SAF will be in England to conclude his deal then, with it ‘claimed’ that ‘confidential documents seen by Arabian Business show that Dr Al Fahim, who launched his bid for the Premier League club on May 27, has now agreed terms with the club’ and he will ‘meet with club boss Peter Storrie Thursday evening in London, with the takeover likely to be officially announced on July 24, after the Premier League has completed its “Fit and Proper” persons test.’
‘If’ this is true then this is something, well more than something it would be fantastic as that would give us 3-weeks to prepare for the new season and more than a month of the transfer window to work with!
But, and here is the but on this, my concerns start with further ‘claims’ of a ’48 page document entitled “Portsmouth: The New Era”, with it also understood that current manager Paul Hart will be kept in charge of the club’, and that worries me…
The suggestion is that as Paul Hart knows the club better than anyone we could bring in he makes a good option – well, this depends which way you look at it, is this ‘cheap’ or ‘puppet’ material?
In my thinking, or is it hoping, I just hope this is being said to play down other ‘options’ we could go for…
It was also said that the prospective new owner will be at Pompey for all homes game until the end of 2009 and the proposed fans meetings will happen, and on Friday nights before home games, with this source saying: ‘As we move forward, the importance of Portsmouth fans, and their views on the future direction of the club, cannot be underestimated. We must have a constant dialogue with them, and begin this process from Day One.’
Plans are ‘said’ to be well underway for the new season with Dr SAF confident enough the deal will be done that it is ‘team sheets’ rather than ‘account sheets’ that he is now looking at: ‘we have moved to the next phase, which is preparing for the season ahead.’
Rugs thoughts
All sounds fantastic ‘in theory’, but as we all know theory and practise are all to often different things…
A price still has to be agreed with Sacha, this much has been confirmed by the club and Dr SAF’s people – unless this has now happened?
The premier league of course need to tick that box on the ‘fit and proper’ test, and it is my understanding that the premier league still cannot put a date on when they will, and they will, rubber stamp this.
To be fair Arabianbusiness.com, and other Arabian news outlets, are well sourced – so this could well have come direct from Dr SAF and/or his people, but I would say this is more what ‘they are aiming for’ as opposed to what is ‘concrete in as much to happen’. This could well be a realistic timescale but time will tell, so I would not be taking too much from it, nor would I totally doubt it.
As always, as hard as it is, retain that patience and lets see what happens! It will happen though, just maybe not by the dates claimed today…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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